From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail…

California’s Railroad Job by Allysia Finley

Republicans once speculated that California Rep. Jim Costa traded his ObamaCare vote—he was one of the last Blue Dog holdouts—for increased federal water allocations to his Central Valley district, which spans from Fresno to Bakersfield. But he may have driven a much harder bargain, which will end up costing state taxpayers billions.

California’s state legislature on Friday green-lighted funding for its $68 billion (or more) bullet train, which in 30 years may connect San Francisco and Anaheim. Since the state has only enough cash in hand to build about 100 miles of track, the train will more likely dead end in Bakersfield, about 130 miles south of Fresno, where the first segment is supposed to begin. Coincidence?

Two weeks before the 2010 midterm elections, the White House announced that it would award California $700 million in high-speed rail funds (in addition to the $2.6 billion of stimulus money Congress had already… Read More

Stephanopoulos: But you reject that it’s a tax increase?

Obama: I absolutely reject that notion…….

Stephanopoulos:……That may be true, but it’s still a tax increase.

Obama: No, that’s not true, George.

-Excerpts from an exchange between President Obama and George Stephanopouls in 2009. For the entire clip of the exchange, click HERE.

Obamacare: I am old enough to remember Harry Truman. No, not President Harry Truman. I am not quite that old! I mean the stubborn individualist who lived in Washington State at the base of Mount St. Helens when that volcano erupted in 1980. That Harry Truman refused repeated attempts by government authorities to evacuate him from the base of the mountain he loved. He was never seen again after the eruption and is presumed to have been buried in a deep lava flow. So, what does… Read More

This just in from Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, who has been a leading critic of the current proposals to fund High Speed Rail in California with billions of dollars in public spending…

THE VOTERS GET IT By Assemblywoman Diane Harkey

A recent Field Poll found that voters are connecting the dots from debt to taxes much quicker than their elected officials. Governor Brown and many Sacramento Democrats seem unable to set priorities even though the state is bankrupt, boasts the lowest credit rating in the nation, must borrow $10 billion for short-term cash flow needs, while cutting public safety dollars and practicing “catch and release” for state prisoners. We rank near the bottom of the 50 states in public education achievement and the Sacramento solution is to realign that function and implement trigger cuts IF voters don’t agree to raise taxes in November. But, billions in debt funding for one hundred miles of track with no train, no ridership and no cost analysis is still on the table.

Thursday, on a party line vote the Assembly Democrats in the… Read More

New study shows finances likely to be worse than planned and poll shows voters not happy with high speed rail spending

As more bad news mounts for California’s high speed rail plan, Senator Doug LaMalfa (R- Richvale) continues to push for a re-vote on the project. A new report from California Common Sense found that with expected cost overruns, the revised and smaller project would likely cost over $99 billion. The report also found that California would need to make annual payments of $6.5 billion for the project if the state shoulders the burden alone. That is more than the state currently spends on the California State University, the University of California and state-sponsored childcare combined. The federal transportation bill passed last week prohibits future federal funding for the project, virtually assuring that California alone will carry the costs.

“Costs for high speed rail will continue to rise even as public support plummets,” said Senator LaMalfa. “California doesn’t have the money for this project. We are cutting the school year, releasing violent felons early, and the… Read More

Over the next couple of days, while vast numbers of horrible pieces of legislation wind themselves further through the legislative maze, three higher profile issues will get most of the media attention. A vote to authorize billions in funding for High Speed Rail is expected, action to move the $11 billion water bond currently slated to go before voters this November, and the lack of any pension reform proposals from the legislature (despite assurances otherwise) before everyone blasts out of town on Friday for a month-long Summer vacation.

HIGH SPEED RAIL BOONDOGGLE When voters gave the green… Read More

— The battle between Governor Jerry Brown and Molly Munger, the daughter of Birkshire Hathaway titan Charles Munger, allows me to officially proclaim that bipartisanship is not dead. Governor Brown opposes Molly Munger’s massive tax increase. And Molly Munger opposes Governor Brown’s massive tax increase. And I actually oppose both the Governor’s massive tax increase and Munger’s massive tax increase. We’re all on the same team!

— Speaker John Perez and hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer both have something in common — both of them want to pass a massive billion dollar plus tax increase that would only further weaken economic recovery in California. You seriously cannot make this stuff up.

— So it is unclear to my why any Republicans in the California legislature would be voting to give any kind of… Read More

With the pivotal San Diego mayoral runoff coming up in November, we San Diegans know we will have to endure the most hate-filled misinformation campaign against a Republican reform candidate (Carl DeMaio) ever seen in a major local race. We got a taste of this in the June primary — big-time. Even though the airwaves carried nonstop anti-DeMaio smear commercials, it was only the opening salvo.

Money will pour in to this race from NATIONAL unions as well as all the usual local suspects. It’s quite possible we’ll see union spending that will exceed SIX MILLION DOLLARS. No way the DeMaio supporters (I’m one) will be able to match that level of spending — but I think we can win. Here’s why.

We’ll detail the sordid background of the labor unions’ standard bearer — Congressman Bob Filner. Even many of my knowledgeable San Diego allies are not fully familiar with the historical degree of affiliation Filner has with socialist and communist organizations and luminaries such as Fidel Castro. His background speaks for itself. And no amount of union spending will be able to counter Filner’s… Read More

There are many areas of California law that are complex and difficult for even public policy experts to understand, let alone lay people like me. For example, try to discuss the finer details of Prop. 98 funding with even the most seasoned Capitol staff person, and you might quickly find their eyes, along with your own, glazing over. Another very challenging area of state policy to digest is how multi-state businesses pay taxes in California. Because some of these topic areas are so convoluted and confusing, we often just look to people who sound like experts to summarize them and help guide us through the public policy maze in search of ferreting out good ideas from poor ones.

For several years I have been writing at a cursory level about how multi-state businesses pay their taxes in California — we’ve all seen the broad descriptions “multi-factor apportionment,” “elective single sales factor,” and so forth. In this column I am going to do my best to really explain this issue of how California taxes multi-state businesses, for two reasons. The first, and I will elaborate further, is that up to this point I have been pretty… Read More